With a series of essential national elections that will, without any doubt, determine the path to follow for European integration in the near future, 2017 is shaping up to be a decisive year for the Union. The rise of EU-sceptic, populist parties all across the continent seems to approach its tipping point in the coming months. In a worst case ... Read More »
Since the outbreak of the civil war in Syria in March 2011, about eleven million Syrians have fled their homes. An estimated one million have requested asylum in Europe. One of them is 24-year-old Muhammed from Damascus. When the the civil war began, Muhammed was obligated to serve in the army. He received a letter from the government, wherein President Assad invited ... Read More »
Climate change is more apparent in the Arctic Ocean than nearly anywhere else on the planet. In the coming decades, this area is likely to be of increasing interest to the international community, posing a myriad of security, commercial, and environmental concerns. As the polar ice caps melt, the area is becoming more accessible to both shipping and resource extraction, ... Read More »
The UN has estimated that over 25,000 people from over 100 countries have joined IS. Without the possibilities modern media offers, IS would have never attracted this many souls to their cause. Of course, the rise of the terrorist group cannot be explained by the way ISIS uses social media alone. However, it is peculiar that for a group that ... Read More »
It is crazy how people know everything about Kylie Jenner’s lipstick but not about what ICJ does…like which war it prevented and so on. The Pax Initiative is a non-governmental organisation launched at the end of 2015 by a team of young and passionate professionals who aim at gathering and empowering youth from all over the world. The NGO focuses ... Read More »
Before my Core Module, Visual Global Politics, I did never really pay attention to them, I thought they were just some faint dull jokes. However, when I delved into the topic for this course’ assignment, I found out that they were more creative, complex and politically relevant than I could have ever imagined. Now, I want to share some of ... Read More »
If you live in a cave, or are not aware of a little thing called the internet, then you may be excused for not knowing that in America there is currently a peculiar circus travelling from state to state, attracting crowds of screaming millennials, frustrated gun owners, and expectant babies waiting to be signed or kissed by a messianic figure. ... Read More »
The Dutch authorities are currently training eagles to capture drones that are violating the Dutch law. The Dutch Ministry of Transport has mentioned recently that there is an increasing trend in the number of incident reports involving drones, the unmanned aerial small machineries. Especially now since the drones are accessible on the market, the numbers of incidents involving drones are ... Read More »
Genocide. A word that triggers intense emotions. A word with some of the strongest connotations, comparable to rape, enslavement or torture. Genocide is the bad stuff, the one crime, especially horrendous, that has not been committed by any random country but by only a few. It immediately evokes associations with the Holocaust, killings in Rwanda or the killing fields in ... Read More »
High heels, smoky eyes and Molotov cocktails. At first sight, those words do not seem to define a fighter. Born at the end of the 1980s in Iran, Kurdish singer Helly Luv (Helan Abdulla) has been constantly challenging our perception of what it means to take stand and fight. Facing extreme poverty and insecurity from a young age, Luv fled ... Read More »
Checks&Balances Checks and Balances is the magazine of the Study Association Clio from the program "International Relations and International Organization" at the University of Groningen. Topics include international politics, ethics, conflict and development